Home
by Triforce Chica
Summary: Home, as Al learned, was a place called Munich. But around every corner is a familiar face, and some things are hard to forget. One-shot. Takes place after series and movie, contains spoilers for both. Hints of Ed/Roy, Ed/Alfons, but it's not the focus.


**a/n: **Ugh, this fic. I wrote most of it around three years ago, and only finished it up today. So if the last…eight hundred words seem disjointed from the rest of the fic, that's why. This story's kinda aimless and all over the place and I couldn't figure out how to end it non-crappily…sorry

Takes place post-series, post-movie. Kind of like a "what happened after" thing. There's eensy weensy tiny hints of Roy/Ed and Alfons/Ed, but it's mostly a character reflection piece on Ed and Al. It was actually meant to be an Elricest slash fic, but somehow that didn't happen. Hope you enjoy it, anyway.

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Home, as Al learned, was a place called Munich. It might have been called Amestris. The city they were living in might have been Central, and the countryside they visited might have been Risembool. Their policeman friend might have been Hughes-san in something more than a name and a face.

All of these things might have been, but they weren't, and Al was living in Munich, not Amestris. Though the two places were so similar, for the first few weeks Al thought he would die of shock every time he ran into a familiar face — especially the face that Al knew last as belonging to Fuhrer Bradley, the homunculus — but that's all they were, faces and nothing more.

"It took me by surprise, too." Ed told him, "But nobody in this place is who you think they are. They look familiar, but they're not..." his brother trailed off then, a painful look crossing his face.

There was a Roze in this world, but she was a gypsy called Noah. And Scar-san and Lust, or whatever names they went by now, they were here as well, and alive. Al was glad. Scar-san was a good man, with a good heart, and Al couldn't help but think that if they had met under different circumstances, he would have gotten on very well with nii-san. Even though he knew it wasn't the same Scar, Al felt that perhaps they were getting a second chance in the matter.

He learned from Ed that there had been a Hoenheim here, but it was the actual one, their father. Ed apparently had time to reconcile with him, but—

Al didn't ask his brother where their father was now. He knew what the answer would be.

There were so many faces, painfully familiar, in Munich. The only one missing from this parallel universe, their new home, was the Colonel.

"That's a good thing," Ed had joked, giving Al a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "One Colonel is enough for a thousand universes." He was smiling, but his eyes were sad and distant. That was so like his brother. To smile about his sadness, to laugh about his pain, was something that was distinctly Edward in nature.

"That statement could be taken a number of ways, nii-san." He said suggestively, and Ed's face turned beet red. The former Full Metal Alchemist stumbled over his denials, embarrassed, but had already been proven guilty because of the fact that he hadn't asked Alphonse to clarify what he meant. It didn't matter, Al already knew that he missed Roy more than words could say. And Al knew, from the frequent calls Mustang-san used to make to Risembool, that the Flame Alchemist missed Edward just as much. When Winry picked up the phone, the calls would be short, an update of how things were going, an inquiry into everyone's health; there was a cool distance about Mustang then. When Alphonse chanced to be home and picked up the phone, the calls were different.

Al suspected that the Colonel was reminded of Ed when he answered the phone. Even though they didn't sound too alike, Al knew how things blurred together to a lonely heart. God knows how many people he'd mistaken for nii-san over the years.

The calls then would be personal, very personal, but neither of them would understand how to put things into words.

"Ah, Alphonse-kun. How are things?"

"Good, Mustang-san. As good as things can be, now." A hollow laugh on the other line.

"True. And how is...no, I'm sorry. I guess, just, hearing you—"

"It's okay. I understand. I wish he was here too." Though, looking back on those conversations, it must have been harder for Mustang-san, who remembered everything. Al had the luxury of amnesia.

There was a long pause on the other line.

"...yes. Well, I will tell you if the situation changes over here. You do the same." It wasn't a question. The line clicks off.

Ed had seen Roy during his brief time back in Amestris, but that had been in the middle of combat, and hardly long enough to exchange proper insults. And there _was _no Roy in Munich.

A thousand universes, huh? Don't you just mean, nii-san, that the only Roy you want is _your _Roy? Al smiled. Ed didn't even have a clue how sentimental he was.

In Munich many things were familiar, but nothing was the same. Al knew, but he had to keep reminding himself of this fact. If he didn't consciously think about it and slipped into old habits, eventually he would start asking Hughes-san how his daughter was doing. And Hughes wasn't even married yet. He had to stop thinking of the familiar faces as people he used to know, and start thinking of them as people he had yet to meet.

It was difficult, but time would see it pass. If there's one thing they had now, it was time.

It might have been because of all this newfound time that Al began to take an interest in rockets. He learned about them from a book in the library, a place that he'd taken to hanging around. For some reason, the subject fascinated him; he couldn't really understand why. The mechanics reminded him of Winry, and Ed's automail arm, which had somehow managed to survive in Munich, and of alchemy. Yet there was something else which drew him to it, a desire to explore space, that unknown area. Maybe in that darkness there was a solution—

Ed didn't like his brother's fascination with rocket ships and space. Even when Al said that there might have been a way to get home in the designs of those machines, Ed brushed him off with a wave of his left hand and said, in his older-brother voice,

"I once thought that, too. But there's no need for it anymore. _You're _here, so I'm home."

Al didn't know what to say to that. But what about everyone else? What about Roy, what about Winry? Didn't Ed love her?

"Yeah," he said, casually leafing through a science journal, sprawled out on his bed, "I did...do love her. She was like mother," distant look, "and not like mother."

Whenever the topic of their mother was brought up, Ed got this look in his eyes and sort of closed up, drew into himself. It was hard even for Al to shake him out of it. But this time, Ed just waved it off and said,

"It doesn't matter. Like I said, _this _is home now, and we've got to move on. We can't forget, but we have to go forward."

Sometimes Al thought his brother was obsessed with moving on. His philosophy seemed to be: Don't stop to grieve too long, just pack up your heart and take it somewhere else. Somewhere it can't be hurt. Al didn't agree with it, but he understood why Edward thought this way.

There was another reason for Ed's dislike in Al's new interest but Al didn't learn of it until one day, when he returned from studying at the library. The apartment was dark, the only light being the setting sun filtering in through the dirty window.

Ed was asleep at his desk, an empty glass clasped loosely in a gloved hand. Beside that, an empty bottle. He laid in what look like an uncomfortable position across a mess of papers. Al approached him with caution, not wanting to wake him. And then he saw it, the glossy surface of the paper catching the light of the dusky sun.

Gingerly, Al lifted his brother's arm and slid the photo out from under it. He held it up to his face, looking at it closely.

"What...what is this?" Ed, smiling brightly, one arm around the shoulders of a taller figure who was crouching down to accommodate for his height. That other person...was him. But no...the boy in the photo was taller, his hair and eyes were lighter. But in a general perspective, it was like looking into a mirror.

"Alfons..." Ed whispered sleepily, and Al nearly jumped in surprise. "Alfons, you idiot..."

Alfons? ...Alphonse. This boy...

Al looked down at the picture. It _was _him, but it wasn't. This Alfons was, clearly he understood now, the 'him' that was born on this side of the gate. When he thought about it, back to when he first came to Germany, he realized that he had seen this boy before.

Images flashed through his mind, of a gypsy girl holding a body, and blood, so much blood, and nii-san. At the time, all he'd been concerned about was nii-san. He hadn't paid much attention to anything else. But now he could see, that body she'd been holding was Alfons. He was dead.

This 'other Al', who looked like him, who lived with his brother, had been someone important to Edward. Important enough, at least, to drive the older Elric to drinking his memory away. At this thought Al was struck with a sharp pang in his chest, and he felt like crying. He looked up and found a pair of honey-yellow eyes staring at him with amusement.

"Ah...I hoped to clean this mess up before you got home, but I guess I fell asleep," He said, grinning, "Hm, looking at you, I almost thought that he..."

"Nii-san!" Al all but shouted, "What's going on? What was he to you?" He waved the picture around, "Am I just some kind of...replacement?"

Ed snatched the picture away from Al effortlessly, without even really looking. His head was bowed, and when he spoke next his voice was quiet and held a serious tone.

"Al. Sit down." It was a command, and Al followed it, sinking into the room's extra chair. Ed was looking at the picture, one hand softly stroking it as if it were a fond companion. "He said the same thing, when I told him he resembled my little brother. He thought he was a replacement for you."

Silence. Cicadas chirped noisily outside.

"Al, how closely did you look at the picture?" He held it out for Al to see, pointing to something in the frame. Al leaned in, squinting. The other Al was smiling and his eyes were fixed on Ed, but he seemed a little uncomfortable with Ed's physical closeness. And then, Al noticed that he was clutching some small, mechanical-looking object.

A rocket. Edward flipped the picture over. In neat, precise writing — a feminine script — the words "Edward and Alfons's first rocket ~1922."

"We built it together. The picture was a gift from Glacier." Al looked up at his brother, who was frowning. He seemed a million miles away.

"Nii-san..." Al didn't like this strange mood that had come over them both, like a spell that would not allow itself to be broken. The cicadas continued to buzz, ignorant to the tension building within the small, cramped apartment. Ed broke the tension by speaking, his voice like scissors cutting through thick rope.

"Alfons Heiderich," he said, and to Al's ears the name bore a heavy weight, "He had your name and your face. I won't deny that I was drawn to him for that reason, but he wasn't you." Ed laughed, "For that, I'm relieved. He wasn't you at all."

Ed tilted his head back a little, his ponytail sliding off his shoulder with the movement, and sighed. He was smiling.

"We met because we were both interested in rocket engineering. I wanted to use the technology to find a way back home. But Alfons, he wanted to be remembered. 'The proof of his existence', he said."

"Proof...of existence?" Al parroted blankly.

"Sound like anyone you know?" Ed looked at Al with a wry grin. "God, Al. He thought I was crazy, the first time we met. I thought he was you. I remember it like it was yesterday, seeing him across the park. I ran up to him, shouting, crying. I thought he was _you_ and I kept trying to hug him, to touch him. I…" A deep sigh.

"One year ago today. Do you remember?"

The day he'd come to this world. Al nodded.

"Probably the happiest…and the saddest day of my life."

Al frowned at the smile his brother's face.

"You've never…mentioned him before today."

"That's because it didn't matter. I never _would_ have mentioned him at all, except you came home early. I haven't even thought about him once since everything happened, but it would be rude for me not to remember him today."

It was a blatant lie. Al knew his brother better than he knew himself. Edward was a thinker, and he thought about things until they burned a whole in his mind. If it was something that hurt him, or something he felt guilt over, he thought about it even more.

"You loved him."

"I love _you_, Al. And that's all that needs to be said," he held up the picture in one hand, "I'm going to go burn this. Excuse me—"

Ed made to get up, but Al was faster and blocked the doorway.

"No! Nii-san, you said he wasn't me and that means you loved _him_!" Al's voice rose nervously, the same way it always did when he was confronting an emotionally volatile Ed, but he remained resolute. "I'm not going to let you run away this time."

"Alphonse—" Ed's voice was low and steady, and his amber eyes were hard. "Move."

"I _won't_! You always do the same thing, you try and run. When it hurts, you hide away in your mind and pretend like you never cared at all. It's insulting! To all the people that loved you, it's insulting. Acting like you've forgotten Winry, and the Colonel, and Mom—"

"That's _enough_, Al!"

But Al couldn't stop. Everything he'd been thinking to himself in the past months came pouring out of his mouth like water. "—and that _other_ me—"

Ed punched him. He deserved it, in hindsight, for bringing up Mom.

"His name was _Alfons Heiderich_. And he wasn't an 'other you'. He wasn't an other _anything_." Ed growled, his shaking hand still clenched in a fist. Al looked up at him from his position now sprawled on the floor, one hand covering his bruised jaw. He stared at his brother, surprised. "And you're an _idiot_ if you think I've forgotten him, or Winry, or anybody. Everyday…they're all I can think about."

He stepped over Al, and a moment later Al heard the front door to their apartment slam violently shut.

It rained that night, and later Edward came back looking soggy and upset and he was tripping over himself trying to apologize to Al.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have hit you. I just lost my temper."

"I'm glad I made you lose your temper, nii-san. It's the most emotion you've shown all year."

Ed laughed at that. "I _have_ been pretty bad, haven't I?" He looked up at Al through his golden fringe, a sorry look in his eyes. "Can we start over? There's a guy I want to tell you about."

Al grinned, "Okay. I'm listening." He sat down on the bed, and Ed began to speak.

"It was the summer of 1922…"

Things were better after that night. Ed tried his hardest, for Al's sake, to forget his old mantra of 'forget and move on'. He smiled real smiles with an increasing frequency. There were times when the old Ed came back, when Al would come home to find his brother staring off, looking at something a million miles and a thousand years away. But on the whole, they'd pulled together, and this life of theirs was finally starting to feel like home instead of the place they were while they tried to return to their _other_ home.

In the market one day, he'd met a girl with long blond hair and Winry's eyes. He'd been so startled when she said hello that he dropped the bag of produce he'd been carrying and ran straight home.

Ed laughed when he heard the story. The next day he went with Al to the market, and when they ran into the girl again, he kept a tight grip on Al's arm and introduced him to her. Somehow, they walked away from the exchange with an agreement for Al to meet her for dinner at her parent's house. After that, it became a goal – almost a hobby – for his older brother to meddle in their relationship, doing as much as he could to ensure things went smoothly. It worked, somehow, because he was engaged to the girl within the year. If Al felt his brother's interest in his love life was unhealthy, he chose not to comment.

Munich, as Al had learned, was a place of familiar faces and the memories of people he'd once known and a past he'd once lived. And now, somehow, it was home.

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Please review if you liked it! I appreciate hearing your thoughts.


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